Female Criminality As With the General Cultural Dissertation

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Female Criminality

As with the general cultural perspective permeating academics and the life sciences in the early 20th century, theories on female criminality are pointedly sexist in nature and descend from an aggressively patriarchal view point. As we find in biologically driven models proposed by figures such as Lombroso, there is a proclivity to view female criminals through a completely different lens specifically informed by abnormalities or variations in femininity. According to Hamilton (1999), Lombroso "described criminal women as biologically dysfunctional. He believed that female deviants lacked maternal instincts, exhibited atavistic characteristics, and bore more masculine physical features, such as an excess of body hair." (Hamilton, p. 1) Taking this notion yet a step further, Freud argues that women prone to crime are abnormal not just in their deviation from femininity but in their penis envy. The view that female mental disorder descends from the desire to be male is, of course, unspeakably chauvinistic and unscientific. A similar lack of empiricism is found in Pollock's notion that female criminals are made thusly by the difficult emotional conditions resulting from the female hormonal system.

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A recent news item underscores the degree to which these theories fail in their relevance by suggesting a core sociological (as opposed to biological) motive for criminal action. The story by Hedeen (2012) tells of a woman recently incarcerated for threatening to kill President Obama. While the woman's backstory reveals previous evaluation for mental competency, it also denotes that social services had revoked her custody of her children. This condition, one that is specifically implicated by sociological conditions such as poverty and broken homes, is what led to her irrational criminal behavior. There is little to account for the sociological pressures that led to her criminal act in the above-delineated theories.

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The two sources here combine to offer a thorough understanding of the gradual evolution of perspective in female criminality. Indeed, the notion which perhaps emerges from the combination of these sources as most important is the need….....

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